George Bush has dismayed half the US public and, I'm sure, much of the world by apparently winning the election.

The race is not technically over. Ohio is not only desperately close, with hundreds of thousands of uncounted ballots technically still able to swing the election back to Kerry, but the number of voting irregularities in the state are guaranteed to make it a centre of litigation.

So despite the rush of the networks (led by - surprise - Fox News) to call Ohio and the White House for Bush, this one is still not quite over.

But that aside, this election shouldn't even have been close. We have a president that has saddled the nation with record deficits and who has little clue on how to rein in spending. A president who inflicted upon the nation (and Iraq, and our allies) a costly and bloody war that should never have been waged. A president that has divided the country like none other, despite the unity we shared after 9/11. A president that has committed crimes against the environment, catered to his cronies at the expense of poor and middle class Americans, and turned virtually the entire world against our nation.

So how did Bush even get this far? By demonising an entire group of people -- gays and lesbians. By cynical appeals to religion. By slandering a true war hero. And, most importantly, by scaring people. You see, terrorists would detonate a nuclear bomb in a major city if Kerry were elected. Only Bush can protect us.

And those efforts, as I have written before, were all aided and abetted by a well-oiled message machine the likes of which the American left is still unable to match.

Aside from the presidential contest, Democrats suffered losses in the Senate and the House of Representatives. As far as American progressives may have come in these last two years, it's clear we still have a long way to go.

We put together an unprecedented ground operation, but it was matched by the zealots on the right. We experienced an explosion in the blog world and started a nascent liberal radio network, but our message machine was far outmatched by the rightwing noise machine (Fox News, the Washington Times, Drudge Report, Talk Radio, etc.) We put forth quality candidates in races nationwide, only to see most outclassed and outgunned by a GOP which ran on three simple tenets: God, guns and gays.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, but one that should hopefully lead to a brighter future. Bush owns his messes, and now he'll be forced to clean them up. He won't be able to hide behind 9/11 seven years into his term. Unless the Republicans can engineer a recovery of epic proportions, they will have a great deal to answer to in the 2006 midterms and 2008. And God help Bush if this nation suffers another terrorist attack.

But best of all, we'll continue to see this great resurgence in progressive activism - the kind not seen in American politics in over a generation. None of these new activists heeded the call to arms only to abandon the fight today. We are energised, and will continue to fight for a better future for our country.

The big money donors on the left have woken up to their responsibilities, and are working to match the $500m the right pumps into their machine each year. The blogs will continue to grow, as will our new radio personalities. The seeds of a genuinely liberal media have been planted and will continue to bear fruit. Our newly minted thinktanks will work to match the right's successful efforts in defining the political lexicon - death tax, tax relief, compassionate conservatism. And activists will be better trained to carry the fight into the field.

The United States is a bitterly divided nation, at war with itself. Tuesday was merely one battle in a long-term war for the heart and soul of our nation. There will be the usual blather about unity and nonesuch, but the time for that is past. Bush has won himself four additional years to further inflict damage upon the world. Half of of the US public is not happy about that tonight.

In the meantime, we will be training our forces, re-evaluating our tactics, marshalling our strength, and, ultimately, keeping our eyes on the prize.

· Markos Moulitsas runs the dailykos.com US political blog, and Our Congress, a blog tracking the hottest congressional races